Lijun Song is an Associate Professor of Sociology, MHS (Medicine, Health, and Society), and Asian Studies, and directs the SNAIL (Social Networks and Inequalities Lab). Her research investigates how societies produce and reproduce inequalities. Her core research interests include social networks, health, and social stratification (gender/sexuality, race/ethnicity, and class). Currently, she is advancing her new social cost theory to explore the detrimental consequences of social networks. She also leads an NIH R56-funded project ($1.3 million) to design the first-ever national study of older never-married adults.
Her scholarship has appeared in such journals as Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Social Forces, Social Networks, Social Psychology Quarterly, Social Science and Medicine, Society and Mental Health, and Work and Occupations. Her work has garnered support from institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. She has secured over $15 million in research funding, with $1.5 million as a Principal Investigator and $14 million as a Co-Investigator. She has received two publication awards from the American Sociological Association (ASA): one from the Section on Asia/Asian America and another from the ASA Section on Sociology of Mental Health. She has been elected to chair two ASA Sections: Medical Sociology and Sociology of Mental Health. For more information, please refer to her CV, Google Scholar page, and ResearchGate page.